As a heart attack
by JolinarJackson
Summary: Brian's phone rang in the middle of the night and that usually meant bad news ...


**As A Heart Attack**

_Word Count: ~_1.500

_Summary: _Brian's phone rang in the middle of the night and that usually meant bad news ...

_Characters: _Brian Kinney, Michael Novotny

_Pairing: _Brian/Michael (canon), Michael/David Cameron (hinted)

_Rating: _PG-13

_Spoiler: _For the season one finale

_Setting: _Between season one and two

_Warnings: _Language

_Author's Note: _I was out of the fandom for a very long time and I never posted anything while I was still into it. I'm just getting back, so this is really a first timer for me. Written for a 5_prompts table and prompt #2: _as serious as a heart attack_.

_Beta:_ Miko Akako, who did a wonderful job.

_Disclaimer: _I'm not making money with this fanfic. The tv-show _Queer As Folk _and the characters appearing within it belong to their producers and creators. Any similarities to living or dead persons are purely coincidental and not intended.

XXX

Brian's phone rang in the middle of the night and that usually meant bad news ... or Debbie had woken up and decided that now was a good time to have a go at him. It had happened before. It hadn't happened since he was twenty-three, out of his mind from drugs and booze and had left Michael in some sleazy club to go home with a trick. It hadn't been his fault that Michael wound up in the middle of a brawl, but somewhere along the line, in-between Debbie barging in when he'd tried to give Michael a hand-job and him turning up to her birthday party high as a kite when he'd been twenty-one, she'd decided that yes, everything going wrong in Michael's life was his damn fault!

Brian sighed and considered ignoring the phone, but then he remembered that it really _could_ be bad news, something to do with Gus or Vic or Michael, so he answered. "Yes."

"_Brian ..." _It was Michael. Michael, who was supposed to be living his happy homo life with David. He sounded timid and a bit as if he was expecting Brian to just hang up. Not panicky or scared.

That meant that nobody was hurt, damn it!

"Michael, it's four in the morning. I just went to sleep. I have a presentation at eight."

"_Sorry, but ... can you come pick me up?"_

Brian didn't need details on why. Those, he would get later. "Where?"

XXX

"Don't tell anybody I'm here," was the first thing out of Michael's mouth while he stashed his duffel bag in the back of the Jeep, and Brian agreed by pulling him close and kissing him. The car behind them blew its horn and Brian rolled down the window to make a rude gesture. Michael slammed the passenger door shut.

Brian left the curb. "So," he said, wondering if there was some kind of secret meeting at the airport at half-past four in the morning. The lanes were packed, the people impatient and Brian was tired. "You're here undercover, yes?"

Michael nodded and wrestled with the twisted seatbelt for a minute.

"Where are you gonna stay then?" Brian asked, "And won't David be missing you?"

"I thought I could stay at yours and David certainly won't miss me."

"Mean break-up?"

"We're taking a break," Michael said.

"Break-up," Brian concluded with a nod.

"I hate that you do that!" Michael snapped. "We didn't break up. We just thought that it would be best for the both of us if we wouldn't see each other for some time."

"Okay," Brian said. He waited for a minute to give Michael some time to calm down. Then he asked, "Those were David's words, not yours, am I right?"

Michael crossed his arms and stared out the passenger window.

"What did he do?" Brian asked.

Michael's lips thinned and he shook his head.

Brian waited.

Michael said, "He treats me like a child."

"Nothing new there," Brian answered, but Michael ignored him and continued, "I wanted to go out with him, get to know the scene, but he said that we weren't in Pittsburgh anymore and that it's time to leave the scene behind us."

"I assume you told him where to shove it."

"He didn't let me. He went on about how immature the scene is and ..." He stopped.

"And?" Brian asked.

"That I'm looking for an excuse not to be with him. That I'd go there and look for someone like you."

Brian had expected that. "Should I feel insulted?"

"I don't know," Michael sighed. "I'm just tired." He looked at Brian. "Thanks for picking me up. I didn't know who else to call."

"I really hope so," Brian answered. "I'd like to be the one you call every time you break up with a boyfriend."

"We didn't break up."

"Whatever."

XXX

The city lights barely reached Brian's bedroom. He and Michael were lying curled up around each other and Brian could hear Michael breathing almost soundlessly. It felt like back then, when they had been teenagers in Michael's narrow bed, and he was almost tempted to grab the torch from the nightstand drawer and pull the covers up over them. Nothing had been simple back then. Homophobia and bullies and Brian's dad had been daily nightmares, but it had been before work and bills and proper boyfriends, and it had been just the two of them against the rest of the world, and that made it somehow different and something to look back upon on with a smile.

"How's Justin?" Michael asked.

Brian's hand tightened in Michael's ratty t-shirt, forming a fist against Michael's belly. "Better. Frustrated." He sighed and added, "So I hear."

"You haven't been to see him?" Michael asked and there was a hint of disappointment in his voice.

"Not really," Brian answered.

"But why?"

"I don't know," Brian snapped. He felt guilty immediately, since this was the first time in weeks they were really speaking. Michael had always ended their phone calls quickly, maybe because he didn't want Brian to notice that he wasn't doing well.

He smoothed his rough tone with a gentle caress to Michael's belly. He knew he was avoiding Justin and that it wouldn't work forever, but he couldn't bring himself to see him. He'd tried but he wasn't able to face him.

Michael turned around to him and in the weak lights, his eyes were black. "You know it's not your fault, right?" Michael asked and his fingers ghosted over Brian's cheek.

"I know," Brian answered, but it didn't feel that way. Some part of him blamed himself.

"I thought it was pretty great what you did at the prom," Michael said. "Some would even say ... romantic."

Brian groaned. "Shut the fuck up!" His tone wasn't hostile now, just plain irritated.

He saw Michael smile brightly. "But it was," Michael said and then he giggled, when Brian's fingers tickled his ribs. Then Brian caught himself and remembered that they were thirty years old and not fifteen. He really shouldn't be tickling Michael.

He turned his back on him, instead, hiding his embarrassment about being so unguarded. Sometimes, he didn't even want Michael to see too deeply. "Let me sleep," he complained.

Michael plastered himself to Brian's back. "I wish we could have done that. Danced at the prom."

Brian turned his head, then his whole body. "Yeah," he said. "I was even planning on it, imagine that."

Michael's smile got smaller, more tender. "Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack."

"Then why didn't we do it?"

Brian bit back the truth, just shook his head. "I realized that it would only lead to problems."

"Since when does that stop you?"

He shrugged. "It did back then." He pulled Michael closer. "It would have been a laugh, though." Until after the prom, of course. Todd Braskin's mean smile alone had sufficed to convince Brian drop his plans of pulling Michael onto the dancefloor. He'd seen it in Todd's eyes, that night, slightly glazed over from the alcohol he and his buddies had snuck into the hall. Brian's family had planned to depart for a two-day pseudo family weekend in New York the day after and the thought of Michael, the perfect victim in the aftermath of Brian's stubbornness to get his way, would have suffered the consequences alone – in the mall, in some alleyway, anywhere Todd and his friends could catch him.

Michael rested his head on Brian's shoulder. "I missed this," he said, then softer, "I miss you."

Brian wanted to tell him that he should come back if that was the case, return to Pittsburgh and _Babylon_, his friends and family ... to Brian. But he'd made a decision a long time ago. Things with Michael couldn't go further than they already were or he would eventually lose him to bitterness and hatred – his parents had been proof enough that relationships wouldn't hold. He loved Michael, he really did, at least he could admit that to himself. He knew he would just have to say the words and Michael would be his for the taking. But he couldn't. Love, when mixed with sex, was so easy to shatter – he couldn't believe in something so fragile, and he certainly wouldn't trust it to hold both him and Michael.

Michael sighed deeply and his thumb rubbed Brian's bare shoulder. "I'm scared I'll screw things up with David."

"Don't be," Brian said. "You won't." He rolled them over and looked down at Michael. "You are fantastic, Mikey. That's why you're getting on a plane first thing tomorrow and you're going to work things out with David."

"And if I can't?"

"Quit whining!" Brian said. "It's easy. If you can't, you'll come home."

Michael seemed undecided for a moment, then he asked, "Do you miss me?"

"Don't be pathetic," Brian said. He buried his face in Michael's neck and breathed in deeply. "I need you," he muttered. "I need you to be happy with your life."

It was quiet for a long time. Brian was on the edge of sleep, when a kiss whispered across his forehead, along with three words Michael rarely said, "I love you."

Brian pulled him closer. "Me, too. Always have, always will."

END

04/11


End file.
